


Apples and Oranges

by weytani



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/M, Fluff, Gwevin Week 2020 (Ben 10 Series), Ice Skating, Missing Scene, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weytani/pseuds/weytani
Summary: Collection of oneshots written for Gwevin Week 2020.
Relationships: Kevin Levin/Gwen Tennyson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. hearts on fire

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my tumblr for Gwevin Week. For some reason these two have been living rent-free in my head this past month, so I ended up participating. Nice to write for a different pair though!
> 
> The word prompt for this one was "crash", and it's set (loosely) in the reboot-verse.

Gwen tied the laces of her skates into a tight bunny-eared knot, exhaling a small puff of vapour into the cold air as she hopped up off the bench. Before her lay the only skating rink in Bellwood, an oval sheet of ice that would span a line-up of maybe thirty people, at a push. Today, though, only a scattered few were making slow loops around the rink, most of them in couples or families of three.

A small part of Gwen had really believed Grandpa might disappear at the end of summer break. He was, after all, a grey-haired mirage of a man who had slipped in and out of their lives for as long as she could remember. Grandpa belonged to a world wholly separate from theirs, one with aliens, monsters, and portals into other dimensions. Scary ones. Meanwhile, she and Ben had school five days a week, and homework on the weekends.

But Grandpa hadn’t vanished. Or, at least, he always re-materialized every Wednesday afternoon, just in time for the final school bell, and waited patiently in the school parking lot with the old Rustbucket taking up at least three spaces by itself. Sometimes they went for smoothies, and sometimes they chased ten-armed aliens out of their little town.

Today, with Winter break not far on the horizon, they were trying something different.

“Why does it have to be so slippery?” Ben complained from the edge of the rink. Grandpa had been leading him by both hands for a while, keeping him upright with some real effort, but Ben quickly grew too embarrassed that someone they knew might wander by and laugh at him.

So, with very little persuasion, Grandpa had gladly retired to the diner by the entrance to watch (and eat a party-platter of sandwiches), leaving Ben clinging to the waist-high wooden barrier by himself, legs quaking like a baby deer learning to walk.

Gwen smirked at him. “Maybe you should turn into an alien with better balance, dweeb.”

When Ben’s face immediately perked up in consideration, she shook her head, trekking across the rubber guard mats to meet him at the wall. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Hey, this place could use a little action,” Ben said defensively.

Together, they watched the couples passing by, all of them bundled up in thick coats while they held hands under the beaming overhead lights. Holding each other up, laughing at each other’s stumbles, arcing around each bend in easy tandem.

“Ugh.” Ben jabbed a finger to his mouth in a theatrical gag. “I’m so out of here.”

He pulled himself along the wall with painstaking slowness, and Gwen watched as he clumsily manoeuvred around the resting skaters in his way. Totally oblivious to the fact that he was skating in the wrong direction.

She smiled after him for a while, almost fond but mostly exasperated, before she found an opening in the barrier and pushed herself smoothly out onto the ice. Weaving into the stream of skaters as they banked around felt as natural as breathing; Gwen had been coming to rink with her parents, around this same time every year, since she could walk upright by herself.

It was freeing to glide with every kick, as close to flying as she could get without her spell book in hand. Her legs held steady, bent at the knee to keep her body leveraged as she rotated.

Gwen closed her eyes, just for a second, as the wind whipped locks of short red hair across her face, and crashed into a body only slightly larger than her own.

Immediately, her legs flailed out from under her, and Gwen had a brief two seconds to yelp and grab a handful of the other person’s jacket before they both tumbled sideways onto the rink.

“Ouch,” she mumbled, shuffling onto her knees and shivering when the ice seeped through her jeans.

“Watch where you’re going, stupid!”

Gwen definitely knew that voice from somewhere.

Kevin Levin was staring at her from the ground less than a foot away, pushing long black hair away from his reddening face as he blustered. “Wha-what’re you doing here?”

“You’re skating the wrong way.” Gwen lifted herself up off the ice and he did the same, facing her. “And I should be asking you that question. Are you stalking Ben now?”

“I got better things to do that chase your loser cousin around,” Kevin said, scowling. He pulled the hood of his padded black jacket up over his head and seemed determined to avoid eye contact with her for some reason.

Gwen leaned forward, curious. “Then… why come here, today of all days?”

“I just wanted to skate, okay?”

That seemed genuine, at least. Kevin was the kind of kid who just did whatever he wanted, when and how he wanted to do it. Impulsive was probably the word. Maybe a little stupid. He and Ben really did have a lot in common.

“Okay.”

He finally glanced at her, catching the amused look on her face before immediately casting his eyes away again. His cheeks still carried a pink hue, but that might have been the cold. “See, I’m pretty good at it. Probably better than Tennyson.” He paused. “The other Tennyson.”

Gwen looked around and spotted Ben grappling with a disgruntled couple on the far side of the rink, yanking at the man’s long beard in a panicked flail.

“Well, that’s not saying much.”

“I could show you some moves,” Kevin said, and his voice sounded a little loud, pitched a little higher than usual. “If you want, I mean. I guess I have time.”

That, she had to see. “Oh, sure. I’d love to see what you can do, Kevin.”

His shoulders jerked a little when she said his name, and he turned his back to her, posturing with both hands on his hips. Around them, people swerved to avoid his wide stance with annoyed looks. He was still facing the wrong way.

“Watch and learn, rookie.”

Kevin’s right foot wheeled out, scraping the ice loudly, and he crouched low, head bent forward like he was about to take off in a dead sprint. Gwen clasped her hands behind her back and watched, patiently, as Kevin spun and tripped over his own feet to land face-first on the ice.

Swing and a miss.

The laugh burst out of her throat before she could help it, and Kevin rolled onto his back with a pained groan. She skated over and hunched down at his side, extending a hand out to him in offering.

His face was the colour of Grandpa’s famous chili now, hot red from humiliation and where his cheek had imprinted on the floor. After a moment of hesitant staring at Gwen’s expression, as though expecting her to scoff and draw her hand back at the last second, Kevin reached out and let her pull him up.

“I don’t think the skates here are advanced enough for that move,” she said, just to save him a little dignity.

“Y-yeah. That’s what it is.”

They both looked down at where their hands were still grasped together. Gwen felt his fingers freeze up in realisation, but he didn’t pull away. Kevin’s bare hand was freezing cold; he didn’t have any gloves of his own.

She squeezed his palm in hers and pulled him forward along the ice, this time in the right direction. “Let’s just take it slow for a while.”


	2. could be a nail in my coffin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two superpowered hot-heads walk into a bar. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the word prompt "warrant", and set sometime in the Ben 10k-verse.

“You know, you’re really getting lazy about this whole ‘convict on the run’ lifestyle.”

Kevin’s head turned up from the bar, chin still leaning on his closed fist as he lowered the half-empty glass of Vulcan whiskey from his lips. With a growing smile, toothy and shark-like, he tipped it at her in greeting.

“Gwendolyn. Been a while.”

“Two weeks,” she said dryly, slamming her Plumber’s badge down on the bar next to his elbow. “I have better things to do than chase you across the galaxy, Kevin.”

“But the chase is the best part.” His pupils glowed unnaturally as he held her gaze, the energy of eleven thousand ill-fated aliens prickling just under his skin. Kevin soothed it, pushing down just far enough to keep his human form in place. It wouldn’t do to cause a scene in public. Not yet, anyway.

He hadn’t finished his drink.

Gwendolyn looked away first, scouting the room quickly with her eyes, and no doubt considering how to empty the place before she had to mana-blast his ass through a brick wall again. His shoulder still wasn’t quite right from the last time, but that was all part of the fun.

Truth was, Kevin had all kinds of hidey-holes to crawl into, places he could disappear from Plumber eyes if he wanted to, and from the Big Brother sight of old Benjy. He’d done it before, just like he’d broken out of the Null Void more times than he could count. It was getting laughably easy, really. 

But he couldn’t resist goading her like this, knowing Gwendolyn would take it upon herself to come out personally just to make a point. Or maybe she knew full well he’d mangle any other life form that came into his line of fire these days. Kevin liked to think she just missed having him around.

“You could make this easy, for once,” Gwendolyn offered, leaning over him to avoid prying eyes. Her hood was pushed back, the scarf that usually concealed her face yanked down to her neck, so he could take in the uneasy frown he’d become accustomed to in recent years.

She smelled the same, Kevin noted, a sweet, floral scent he could pick up with those helpful Vulpimancer senses. Likewise, he could hear the way her heartbeat wasn’t quite steady around him. Time didn’t change everything.

He tilted his head, humming thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“I’m serious,” she said, and he caught her fingers twitch against the badge.

With a swig, Kevin emptied the remains of his drink and dropped the glass heavily onto the bar. Gwendolyn’s eyes narrowed, so close to his own, and he could almost kiss her as his arm morphed into a diamond blade that shot out for her stomach.

The sharpened point cracked hard against a flat orb of pink mana, veering off at an angle, and Gwendolyn’s palm caught him under his scarred chin, a blow so fierce it flipped him backwards off his stool.

To a normal human, that uppercut might have been dangerous enough to cut the wire of his consciousness, but Kevin was, above all, a freak of nature. He knew that much, and he rode the momentum of her strike into a turn that let him swipe at her with a roundhouse kick to the head.

His foot, now splintered and red with blazing heat, smashed against her forcefield yet again, this time hard enough to throw her sideways into the bar. He rotated on his hands, pushing off and landing on all fours a few feet away.

Gwendolyn looked flustered as she righted herself, rose-coloured light gathering around her clenched fists.

“Don’t you get bored of this?” she snapped at him. Kevin stood to meet her, ignoring the petty criminals fleeing from their tables at the sight of them facing off. “The same fight every time, just to get caught or run away with your tail between your legs?”

“I’m not scared of him, Gwendolyn,” he bit out. Little Ben Tennyson with his alien watch, no powers but the ones given to him by his betters. No cost, no consequences, just a statue of his smug face in every city, on every planet.

“Aren’t you?” Gwendolyn’s mana whipped out like a poisonous viper, and Kevin ducked in time to miss a swipe that separated more than a few strands of his hair. “Then what about me? Because I’m running out of patience with this cat and mouse game.”

Her eyes flickered, pupils disappearing into an unearthly glow as she lurched at him, flinging bolts of mana, one after the other, always aimed directly at his head.

Kevin dodged one, and then the next, and smacked the third aside with a bulging red arm that extended lightning-fast from his side, ripping against the open seams in his armoured shirt. Her energy singed the fingers black, but he couldn’t feel them anyway. Too much DNA had amalgamated in his body for him to feel much of anything these days.

Thick rope-like tentacles unravelled from his back, a gift from those nasty little guardians he’d grown so familiar with in the Null Void. He found them grotesque, and once upon a time he might have been ashamed to reveal them in Gwendolyn’s presence, but damn if they weren’t effective.

Like vines, they lashed around the uncovered pipework hanging from the ceiling, stretched taut then released, propelling him well out of her firing range and into the air. He landed by the door and she spun on her heel, another bolt already seeking him out.

Kevin deflected it with a Petrosapien hand, grinning, and caught her follow-up shot across the side of his face. An angry flare of mana from her eyes burned through his cheek and consumed the helix of his right ear, leaving charred skin in its wake and a feeling closer to agony than he’d known in a long time. His head whipped back and he gritted his teeth, barking out a sonic howl that shattered the bow of energy she’d been casting to leash him.

Gwendolyn leaped away, a reactive forcefield swallowing the rest of his blast as he backed up towards the street. Helpfully, she’d blazed a gaping hole straight through the entrance and Kevin planned to make use of it.

“You?” He smiled at her with a droplet of blood beading at the corner of his upper lip, where she’d clipped him, warm and slick as it trickled into his mouth.

“Gwen, you scare the hell out of me.”


	3. new hands need to build them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen and Kevin take a much-needed break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the word prompt "purification", and set sometime in the Alien Force-verse.

Legs crossed and hovering a good three feet off the floor, Gwen felt more at peace than she had in well over a week. She closed her eyes, breathing slow and easy as her open palms lay upright against her knees.

Fighting aliens was therapeutic in its own way, sure. She liked the rush of adrenaline, the life energy singing in and around her like a conduit of circulating power, growing every day. When Ben and Kevin watched slack-jawed as she blasted enemies from one end of a street to the next block over with a single hand gesture? Yeah, that felt pretty great too.

But sometimes, a girl really needed a break. Some time to regroup with herself and—

“So this is what you do for fun, huh?”

Gwen cracked open one eyelid, unruffled by the new arrival. Kevin was sprawled on her bed, flicking lazily through one of her thick textbooks as he held it up over his face. He’d been doing this for a while now, climbing in through her bedroom window at all hours just to lounge around or see what she was up to. Kevin seemed to have no interest in using doors, whether her parents were home or not. He’d just show up like this, mission or no mission, claiming boredom or that he needed somewhere to hide out for a while.

It was cute, sometimes, the way he made up excuses just to be around her. Even if he couldn’t say it honestly.

“Fun, no. It’s… relaxing, I guess.”

“Sure,” he said, dragging out the word and looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “And you wouldn’t, like, prefer yoga or something?”

“Is that what you do to relax?”

Kevin scoffed at the mere idea of that, tough guy that he was– scratch that; tough guy that he wanted everyone in town to _think_ he was. “Please, I’m plenty relaxed as it is.”

“Right,” Gwen said, opening both eyes now. She stayed in position, floating comfortably, but raised a hand to flick the air in his direction. Immediately, the book in Kevin’s hands fell and smacked him flat in the face, pages crinkling against his nose as he grunted. “You’re the poster child for emotional stability around here.”

Kevin pushed the book aside and sat up, frowning in that way of his that suggested she’d pricked a nerve, but he was too proud to admit it.

“Come over here,” Gwen said softly, sinking back to the floor and pointing at a space on the carpet in front of her.

Wearily, Kevin obeyed and mirrored her position, sitting a little further away from where she’d been directing him. She smiled, not sure if he was being respectful or just plain shy; either way, she couldn’t help but find it charming.

“Okay, here I am.” He shook his hands out and twisted his shoulders like he was warming up for a workout. “Mr. Miyagi me, Tennyson.”

“Like this.” Gwen wrapped her fingers around his palm, so much bigger than her own, and pulled it down onto his lap. She did the same with his other hand, and he allowed her to hold them both palm-up for a moment with her fingertips pressed gently to his wrists.

The expression on his face was stoic, almost frozen in place as she touched him. His stare was glued to where Gwen’s skin met his, and she could feel, hear, the way his heart sped up in reaction. She ducked her head, a lock of hair sliding down over one side of her face. “Close your eyes.”

“Okay,” he muttered. His fingers twitched against her wrist, and he exhaled slowly as his eyelids dropped shut. The line of his mouth was tight, like he was clamping his jaw shut too, and his shoulders hunched defensively.

Nothing about that posture screaming “relaxed” to Gwen, or even “comfortable”. Kevin didn’t like showing vulnerability, not to her or to anyone, and she had no doubt he’d been like that since well before they’d met in the arcade that day, so long ago.

She wanted to give him something, a moment of respite from all that pent-up fear and rage.

“Deep breaths,” she said lowly, taking her hands back so she could return to her original pose a short distance away. She closed her eyes too and reached out with her mana, just a little.

It wasn’t an intrusion, not really, and to be honest she was still uneasy about pushing him where his latent power was concerned. Inside this awkward teenage boy was a bottomless siphon that could leech the energy from her body just as he’d consumed the alien DNA in Ben’s Omnitrix.

Gwen didn’t think he’d try to hurt her, not with intent; but he could. And maybe he would, eventually, without even trying. Until then, she couldn’t feed that beast any more than she could keep her distance from him. Instead, she cradled a small piece of her mana and released it in pulses so minute they couldn’t possibly catch in his black hole orbit.

Kevin took in a breath and exhaled, guided by the pulse that would eventually align his heartbeat to hers. Slow and steady, push and pull, in, out, and repeat.

They sat like that for a while without saying anything. Just looking inwards, focusing on the flow of energy, the dissipation of tension built up from the world outside her single bedroom.

Gwen peeked at him from half-lidded eyes, enjoying the peaceful expression he’d taken on while it lasted. Kevin, she mused, was actually quite handsome without that pinched scowl on his face; a fact she was noticing more and more as the days went by. And, well, he wasn’t exactly hard to look at even in his worst moods. But it was nice to see this side of him without Ben around to rile him up.

Without really thinking, Gwen placed both hands on the floor and leaned forward on her knees, closing the distance between them quietly. She pressed her lips to the spot between his eyebrows, barely brushing the skin there before pulling away to find Kevin’s eyes wide open and staring at her. His pupils were blown wide as she settled back onto the carpet.

“So, how did that feel?” Gwen asked, smirking as she pressed an index finger to her lips. “Relaxing?”

Kevin grinned back at her and uncrossed his long legs to stretch out more comfortably. “Felt pretty good, actually. I don’t think that last part is too effective, though.”

“Oh no?” She raised an eyebrow at his innocent tone.

“Something tells me I’d be a lot more relaxed if we tried that again, only right over…” Kevin trailed off, looking around the room thoughtfully, only to hold up a finger pointed at his mouth. “Right around here, maybe.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. But then again, she always was a perfectionist.


	4. one swing ahead of the sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is not what it seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the word prompt "deception", and set in a potentially-Medieval AU. Or something.

Kevin craned his neck to peer out through the gilded doorway of the Lord’s Suite, and into the empty corridor beyond. All clear, for a while at least.

He’d been camped outside one of the arched windows for hours before dropping through it. All that precious time spent lying flat under a bush in the court gardens, just to track guard changes and the frequency of patrols in this wing of the castle. But it meant his ears were now fine-tuned to the heavy stomp of their armoured footsteps from at least a hundred yards away.

Things had been going surprisingly well so far, but he didn’t want to jinx himself. After scaling the high wall along the outer perimeter in the early hours of the morning, and crawling through foliage that pricked and prodded at his skin through his dark leathers, he was not about to leave without his prize. Meaning, of course, coins, jewellery, silks, and whatever else he could get his hands on. He had mouths to feed – namely, his own – and loan sharks breathing down his sweat-slicked neck for money he sure couldn’t afford to pay back.

Argit had called him stupid for even attempting this, like his opinion meant anything to Kevin. He didn’t take advice from scruffy orphan kids, especially ones who made a living stealing vegetables from absent-minded market vendors. He was on his way to better places; all he needed was a sack-full of loot from the rich jerks in this castle.

Once Kevin had marked out where the patrols were least frequent, he’d located the nearest room, and inside it the biggest canopy bed he’d ever seen. Temptation was strong – he hadn’t slept well in weeks – but so too were the ever-present hunger pangs wailing from the pits of his stomach. With great effort, Kevin bypassed the bed and instead raided the heaving walk-in closet for a suitable disguise.

The high-collared doublet he decided on was a narrow fit, and the creases chafed at him under both arms. But after combing his hair out and dabbing his wrists and neck with whatever filled the array of nearby fragrance bottles, Kevin was feeling very unlike himself, which was exactly what he needed.

Back out in the hallway, he walked with confidence along the deep red carpets leading to the first corner. Frankly, he had no clue where he was going. He’d already filled his pockets with gold rings and jewels from the bedroom; the kitchen was his next target, wherever that might be, but it wasn’t like he could stop someone and ask for directions.

Rounding the corner, Kevin almost broke his nose on the metal plate of a guard’s helmet before jumping back in surprise.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Why was there a guard there, 10 minutes too early?

“Apologies, sir, I didn’t mean to alarm you,” said a woman’s voice from under the helmet, and Kevin realised this was perhaps the shortest soldier he’d seen all day.

“Yeah, whatever.” Kevin checked himself. “I mean, uh, that’s all right. Carry on.”

The soldier raised a gloved hand up, and Kevin tensed, but rather than reaching for a weapon she simply lifted the visor on her helmet. Emerald green eyes blinked up at him curiously, and Kevin almost backed up a second time at the pretty face now glancing over his shoulder and down the hallway he’d just taken.

“Most of the nobility have already taken their seats for dinner, sir. Are you…” she trailed off, and Kevin worked to keep his expression neutral, entitled, but may have landed on irritated. “Lost?”

“No,” he said shortly, straightening his posture. At least she hadn’t pinned him for a thief just yet. An idiot, maybe, but he could work with that.

“Then can I escort you to the dining hall?”

“I’m not hungry.” The lie blurted out of his mouth before he could help it, followed almost immediately by the guttural churn of his empty stomach. Kevin flushed, knowing she must have heard that, too. “Or, I mean, I’m not feeling well. So I thought I’d go to the kitchens instead for some,” he paused to consider what a lord might drink instead of the hard canal water routinely poisoning the local townspeople, “wine.”

“I see,” the soldier said, nodding like this was reasonable. Kevin congratulated himself on a successful lie, and stepped forward to move past her.

“So, if you’ll excuse me—"

“I’ll escort you there.”

She had laid a hand on his shoulder. When he turned his head to look at her, in rickety jolts like his neck was snapping under the effort, she was beaming at him as if permitting some great favour.

Kevin had, of course, prepared himself for the possibility that he’d need to kill someone to make it this far, but how the hell was he supposed to attack a woman who looked at him like that? Her grip was like a vice on his shoulder, and he felt his traitorous body start to sweat. She wouldn’t let up, and he didn’t know where he was going; there was no way around it.

“Sure, that sounds, uh, reasonable. You lead the way.”

He followed her from one corridor to the next, past door after door and his hands itched to open them all, just to see what treasures they might contain. But he couldn’t do anything suspicious with this eager soldier glued to his side. So he walked, and kept walking, and some of the turns started to look familiar after a while. How big was this castle?

“Here we are,” the soldier said, finally drawing to a stop outside two tall wooden doors. “I hope you feel better soon, sir.”

Kevin thanked her and, as an afterthought, leaned into what he hoped was a respectful bow. Then, realising he was posing as nobility with no obligation to bow for random guards, no matter how pretty, straightened his back and almost ran into the kitchen.

-

When both doors latched shut behind the strange young lord, Gwen exhaled heavily and pulled the helmet off her head, running a hand through strands of long, red hair in relief. For a second there, she thought he might have noticed that she was well outside the normal patrol route. Or that she was alone where the rest of the guards had worked in pairs.

He hadn’t even commented on her poor sense of direction. Wealth really was no substitute for a brain. Smiling, Gwen pressed a hand to her bulging pockets and sauntered off in search of more loot.


	5. bouncing off the exit signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smoothie giveth and the smoothie taketh away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the word prompt "passion", and set sometime in the Alien Force-verse.

“Remember how we stopped at Mr. Smoothy half an hour ago?”

Gwen turned sideways in the front seat, looking at Ben with suspicious eyes that said she knew he was about to say something even more ridiculous. “Yes, I was there.”

“Well,” Ben said, coughing into his hand and shifting uncomfortably in the middle seat. “Remember how I said the Triple Berry Blowback was totally weak-sauce, and that I could chug it faster than Kevin with both hands tied behind my back?”

“I remember not taking you up on that, and watching you chug it down anyway,” Kevin chimed in from the driver’s seat, raising an eyebrow at Ben through the rear-view mirror.

“Right.” Ben crossed and uncrossed his arms, still moving his weight from side to side like an uncoordinated snake being charmed out of a basket.

Gwen pulled on her seatbelt and turned to face him more fully. “Ben,” she said, her tone flat.

“Remember the bathroom we passed twenty minutes ago?”

“Just go at the next gas station.”

Kevin shook his head, catching her eye as he turned the wheel, and the car rattled around another sharp bend in the country road they’d been on since turning off at the last station. Trees surrounded them on both sides, as far as the eye could see, and it couldn’t see much further than the twin headlights pointing straight ahead.

“Nothing out here for a while, that’s why I filled up back there. Empty track for another hour, at least.”

“An _hour_?” Ben wailed, and he was squeezing his legs together now, his face paling.

“You got the leftover smoothie cup?”

“Kevin!” Gwen smacked him on the arm for that comment, but he just shrugged.

“Better than me killing him for making a mess of the backseat.”

“No way, I refuse to watch him do that.”

“Well, we’re not turning around. I’m not facing your mom again if I drop you off after curfew, she’s got eyes like an Ectonurite when she’s pissed.”

Ben watched them bickering from the back seat, straining to hold back the floodgates that were well on their way to cracking. He couldn’t believe Mr. Smoothy would betray him like this.

“Just pull over!” he yelled over them and rattled the door handle desperately. Stupid child-proof locks.

Kevin gave a put-upon sigh at both of them before turning off the road and pulling up next to the treeline. As soon as he unlocked the doors, Ben flew out of his seat and into the dark forest like a bat out of hell.

He tripped over a tree root along the way, and then smacked his face into a low-hanging branch. But the pain was nothing compared to the relief he felt when he finally got his pants down to his ankles and watered the bushes with two litres of smoothie surprise.

Eventually, Ben finished up and re-zipped his jeans, yawning and stretching his arms out as he prepared to head back to car. Maybe he could talk Kevin into taking the Mr. Smoothy drive-through lane at the Bellwood branch on their way home. Or maybe he could talk Gwen into talking Kevin into it; that was usually a more productive exercise.

It didn’t take him long to realise he’d run so far and so fast into the woods that he now had no clue which direction led to the road. Ben walked one way, and then turned around and walked back on himself, using the torch in his phone to navigate around all the identical looking trees. Eventually, he gave up and mashed his palm against the watch.

Wildmutt tore out of the treeline not two minutes later, veering to a stop behind Kevin’s car triumphantly. In a flash of green energy, his long, furry limbs reverted back to the gangly arms of a teenager.

Ben circled the car and yanked open a sidedoor, sliding back into its warm interior like a hero returning from war. He sure felt like he’d been through the ringer, anyway. Sharp twigs and leaves were tangled in his hair, which he brushed vigorously into the footwell.

Kevin turned to glare at him, and Ben just smiled, holding both hands up. “What? I got lost. It’s dark out there.”

“Better hope we don’t run into anything worse than the dark, scary woods before that thing times back in,” Kevin muttered.

“I’m sure Gwen can handle it.”

Kevin’s glare turned supernova at the jibe, but Gwen didn’t even turn around. She was slumped against the window, her face covered by long hair, and Ben leaned between the seats, trying to parse her mood.

“What’s up with you?”

“Leave her be, Tennyson,” Kevin said, turning the key in the ignition.

What Ben had taken to be rage on his face was starting to look more like embarrassment. His cheeks were flushed, and as Ben leaned closer he spied a small blotch of red skin peeking out from under the collar of Gwen’s shirt.

Choking, he fell back into his seat.

“You guys were _not_ —"

“Just put your seatbelt on,” Kevin snapped.

Gwen raised a hand to cover her face, shaking her head as Ben groaned in disgust.

“I was gone for like five minutes—”

“Don’t make me throw you back out into the woods.”

“Not only is that completely gross,” Ben crowed, starting to enjoy the moment a little more with every passing second, as Kevin turned the car back onto the road and Gwen tried to disappear into her seat, “which it is, by the way – but what if an alien came along and tried to blow up the car? Or kidnap me for the Omnitrix, for the hundredth time. Would you even notice?”

“ _Ben_ ,” Gwen hissed. She raised a glowing hand at him threateningly while still managing to avoid eye contact. “I swear to God—”

“Do you think Vilgax would take five while you guys finished making out? He really seems like the romantic type, you know, when he’s not trying to rip my arm off.”

After five long minutes of this, Kevin slammed hard on the breaks, sending Ben sprawling into the center console.

“This is why people want to kill you, Tennyson.”


	6. you paint dreamscapes on the wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Levin doesn’t play well with others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the word prompt "camping", and (surprise) it's a summer camp AU.

In the two and a half weeks that Kevin had been attending Forever Camp, he’d made it his sole purpose to be the best at everything. He was a poor kid with a stepdad who looked straight through him, and if nothing else that had made him deeply competitive by nature.

So he ran the fastest, and climbed the highest, and pushed harder than anyone else. Kevin tied knots around knots and made a s’more that could melt hearts.

And then the camp across the lake had a bed bug infestation.

All of a sudden, swarms of kids he’d never met before were throwing sleeping bags down in their cabins, fighting over chairs in the dining hall, and, worst of all, competing for his spot as the camp champ. And the two people causing him the most aggravation were the Tennysons.

Ben Tennyson was a little chump who thought he was tough. A kid who tailed Kevin around like they were friends for no other reason than Kevin personally shoved him face-first into the mud-pit during tug-of-war.

Kevin beat him at games and stole his dessert, but he still couldn’t shake him.

Gwen Tennyson, on the other hand, was another problem altogether.

-

**Day One:**

Now dealing with an extra twenty campers to entertain, the counsellors decided to forgo ice-breakers in lieu of tiring them all out as much as possible. That meant one thing: obstacle course.

Kevin was thrilled at the opportunity to assert his dominance so early on. The kids who knew him didn’t even bother to compete anymore. He stood at the head of the line, hands on his hips, and shifted his weight from foot to foot impatiently, ready to show the rest of them how it was done.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand yanked at the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“Can we go first?”

She was shorter than him, this interloper he didn’t recognise, with bright red hair and a mischievous little grin on her face. Behind her stood a scruffy brown-haired boy with both arms crossed petulantly.

“No cutting,” Kevin said with a scowl.

“I told you he looked like a jerk,” the boy muttered. Kevin wanted to hit him, and maybe he would when the counsellors turned around.

The smile on her face dropped, and the girl frowned up at Kevin as she tried again. “Please? We got here late because someone,” she glared sidelong at the other boy, “had to go the bathroom. The line’s super long already, and we want to see who’s faster.”

“I’m faster,” Kevin said automatically.

The girl stared at him, and he stared back, and what ensued was a staring contest that lasted all of five seconds before the girl’s friend jabbed her in the side with his elbow.

“Come on, doofus, he’s just showing off.”

Kevin sure didn’t like that. At the far end of the course, one of the older kids raised a whistle to his lips and blew a screeching note that signalled for the first runner. “I’ll show you who’s showing off.”

He took off like a shot, running up the starting ramp and balancing his way along the wooden footholds. He pushed himself to speed up, swinging wildly across the monkey bars, dropping and running again, climbing the thick rope netting and landing on the other side without hesitation. Then the hurdles, the tire crawl, and straight through to the finish line.

Kevin’s chest was heaving when he finally stopped running, but he turned on the counsellor immediately for a read-out of the stopwatch. One minute and seven seconds, a personal best. He looked back at the starting point with a wide smirk.

The two new campers were still at the front of the line, and nobody seemed to be in a hurry to get past them. From the looks of it, they were now arguing over who would go next.

The counsellor blew on his whistle, and Kevin watched as the boy ran forward, scaled across the wooden walkway, and dropped almost immediately from the monkey bars, right into the soft mud below. No upper body strength. Figured.

Above him, the girl was clutching at her stomach in a fully belly laugh, pointing at her friend as he crawled out of the pit covered head to toe in sludge. Until the whistle blew a third time, and she finally took her turn.

She was fast, really fast, and unlike the boy she had a surprising amount of muscle to back it up. In what felt like no time at all, she was in front of him, hands on her knees as she gasped for breath.

Kevin looked at the counsellor, heart beating fast, and the older boy grinned knowingly at him.

“Fifty-nine seconds.”

-

**Day Two:**

Kevin watched as the two Tennyson kids pelted each other with scrambled eggs over breakfast. They seemed to fit right in almost immediately amongst the other campers, in a way he never had. Not that he wanted to.

Instead, he cornered one of the other kids, J.T., to ask what their deal was, and found out a whole bunch of useless things. They were called Ben and Gwen, and they were cousins. They fought a lot, about pretty much everything, and for a while Ben had been going around telling everyone he had superpowers.

That afternoon, they did trust exercises. Ben dropped Gwen at every opportunity, until the counsellor interceded and split them up. Kevin refused to even take a fall.

-

**Day Three:**

The cousins faced him together during a hostile game of dodgeball, as the last three kids on the court. Kevin’s team sucked, so he’d used them as human shields for the better part of the match.

Ben and Gwen were both quick on their feet, ducking and dodging away from all the balls he lobbed across the court. If they were smart enough to work as a team, he might have been in trouble. But they ran across and around each other instead, even trying to shove the other one into Kevin’s line of fire. And still he couldn’t hit them.

Frustrated, he pitched the ball with all his strength, just as Gwen stumbled over one of the dropped balls from earlier. She would have taken the hit right to her pretty face if Ben hadn’t leaped forward dramatically, letting the dodgeball crack him across the head. Like some kind of hero. Idiot. Loser.

Ben spent the next fifteen minutes with the camp nurse, just to check for a concussion. When she finally released him with a clean bill of health, Kevin overheard Gwen talking to him outside the office.

“So, did that dodgeball knock out what’s left of your brain, dweeb?”

Ben scoffed and pulled her into a playful headlock. “What I think you mean is, ‘Thanks Ben, for saving my nerdy little life’.”

-

**Day Four:**

Kevin shoved Ben’s face into the mud during tug-of-war. For showing off during dodgeball, but mostly just for fun.

In retribution, Gwen splattered him neon green from head to toe during balloon painting that afternoon. After three showers, when he’d finally scrubbed the remaining paint from his hair, it started to seem a little funny. Neither of them could be forced to apologise.

-

**Day Five:**

Gwen smoked him on the track during warm-ups, and then again on the soccer court when he refused to pick either of them for his team. Not his best decision, actually, because that left him with Cooper Daniels who feigned an injury fifteen minutes in just to avoid playing.

Ben tried to sit at his table during lunch.

“Get lost,” Kevin told him, which seemed to have no effect.

Ben used a fork to launch mashed potatoes at the next table over, and maybe Kevin laughed but some things were just patently hilarious. That didn’t mean they were friends.

-

**Day Six:**

“The map says we have to go this way.”

“You’re holding it upside down.”

“Did you just throw our compass into the _lake_?”

Gwen and Kevin spent five hours lost in the woods during a scavenger hunt.

It got dark outside while they were walking in circles, and she was leaning really close to him, even after insisting only babies were scared of the dark. They didn’t hold hands, no matter what the rumours said. He didn’t tell her about his real dad when they were sat back to back on a rock waiting to be rescued. Well, nobody could prove it anyway.

-

By the end of the week, Kevin was reaching the end of his tether. He was sick of Ben Tennyson breathing down his neck, and sick of following the back of Gwen’s head when she sprinted past him on the track field.

And then, like the sun emerging unexpectedly on an overcast day, a call came through that all the bed bugs had been fumigated safely. The camp was clean, and it was time to say goodbye.

Kevin looked on at the noisy campers filing back into their waiting paddle boats with a summer’s worth of luggage in hand. All sixteen of them were rowing back to their own side of the lake in pairs, shrinking into specks in the distance. Good riddance, he thought.

Ben and Gwen were the last ones left on the dock, and Kevin watched them stoically as they waved goodbye to their temporary cabin-mates.

Until, as if sensing his gaze, Gwen turned and caught his eye. He looked away first, unwilling to get caught in another staring contest, but she ran over to him anyway, fishing something small out of her pocket as she approached.

Kevin scowled at her. “What do you want?”

“Give me your hand,” she said, and when he didn’t move a muscle she reached out and grabbed his wrist herself.

“Hey!” Kevin snapped, but she ignored him, wrapping a slim pink and blue plait of thread around his arm and tying it off with a flourish. “What’s this?”

Gwen smiled at him when he yanked his hand back to study the gift.

“It’s a friendship bracelet, stupid,” she said, like he should know better. “Let’s race again next summer, too.”


	7. to a buried and a burning flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demon boy meets girl witch. That old cliché.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the word prompt "ceremony", and it's a fantasy AU.

The spellbook said it took just a hundred grams of ground animal bones, a handful of rose petals, and a cracked turtle shell for a witch to summon a familiar. The book said, quite clearly, “Draw a pentagram on the floor in human blood, preferably your own, but store-bought is fine if you have to compromise. Pile the ingredients in the centre of the circle, and say the incantation three times.”

Gwen always did things by the book. She was top of her class at the Academy, and she always, _always_ played by the rules. Except when the rules got in the way of her natural progression as a witch, of course.

Earlier that day, Charmcaster had come flying into the dormitory with a beast made of rock following in her wake. This was, she said, her new familiar. A servant to do her bidding and probably her homework too, if she could teach the monster how to hold a quill. She’d learned the spell from an old tome in the library, and weren’t they all so jealous of her new ability?

Yes, Gwen was jealous. And also unwilling to let Charmcaster get a leg-up in anything related to magic.

She hunted for that spellbook, all up and down the library shelves. And when she finally found what looked to be a summoning spell in a battered edition of Dark Creatures Great and Small, she crept into an empty classroom and began preparations, exactly as the book instructed.

So why, after all that, was there a decidedly human-looking boy sitting in the middle of her pentagram?

“You got anything to eat?” the boy said, scratching at the back of his black mop of hair and looking around with disinterest. “Cross-dimensional travel really takes it out of you.”

-

“So,” Gwen started, only after she’d taken a high stakes trip to the kitchens for a slab of raw red meat at the boy’s request. No steak for the faculty tomorrow, but needs must. “You’re my familiar, right?” She pressed the spell-book to her chest, uncertainly.

Still sat in the middle of the stone floor, with his long, muscular legs crossed at the ankle, he ripped into the steak like a wild animal, tearing a fist-sized piece from the rest with razor-sharp teeth, and then chewed thoughtfully before answering through a full mouth. “Doubt it.”

“But I summoned you,” Gwen pointed out, grimacing a bit at his non-existent table manners. She paced the room and he tracked her with black, predatory eyes.

“You opened a door and yanked me through it. Congratulations.” He finished chewing and swallowed, before releasing a low burp. “Doesn’t make me your familiar, or whatever.”

“Then what are you, exactly? Because the spell says, and I quote, ‘an incantation to bring forth creatures from the great beyond, who shalt obey the will of she who speaks it’. That seems pretty clear to me.”

The boy rose to his feet abruptly, and Gwen took a wide step back towards the door.

“I don’t obey anybody,” he said, baring his teeth as he stepped forward. “And if I did, it wouldn’t be some witch in her training robes.”

Gwen scowled at him when he took another step. She had simply wanted a rock beast from some other backwater dimension; a really stocky one to prove she was still capable of anything Charmcaster could dredge up. Not this creep who was backing her up towards the wall. He was bigger than her, but he still looked like any other boy, and she didn’t like being threatened.

And if she couldn’t control him, she’d probably end up like the hunk of meat he’d just pulverised and tossed aside.

“You need to back off, _right now_.”

Nothing happened for a moment, and Gwen’s heart skipped a beat, waiting for those sharp teeth to open wide into a gaping maw of death.

Instead, the boy took one last step forward before he froze, eyes open wide in shock, and ricocheted off the far wall. He slumped to the ground next to her summoning circle with a strangled groan, spitting blood into the cracks between the stonework.

“Now that’s interesting,” Gwen said, a smile spreading out across her face as he slowly picked himself up off the floor.

“Try that again, and I’ll make you regret it,” he spat, shoulders heaving.

“Sit.”

He sat. Or rather, he fell backwards gracelessly on his ass.

“You’re dead,” he roared, glaring daggers at her from below. Gwen crossed her arms and stepped closer, more than a little amused by his efforts to separate the seat of his pants from the floor and break her control.

She crouched down less than a foot away, resting the closed book on top of her knees with her arms folded on top. For a quiet moment they just sized each other up in silence.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

Bitterly, he opened his mouth, clamped it shut, and then blurted out, “I don’t have one. We are not to be called.”

“That’s a shame.” Gwen tilted her head. “It’s not going to be much of a partnership if I can’t call on you.”

“So deal with it, _partner_.”

“I could give you a name.”

That seemed to catch him off guard, if the resentful curl of his lip was any indication. “Not interested. Now if you’d let me stand up for five seconds, I can see myself out.”

“And see yourself right into the security runes around every inch of this school,” Gwen added with a smile, getting to her feet. “Pretty sure they won’t let your unholy highness through without cooking your insides to ash.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said snidely. “Me, I’m the first-born son of the Eleventh House. They worship my power in the seedy underbelly of your nasty little kingdom.”

“Eleven,” she repeated, and slapped the cover of her spellbook, sending up a thick cloud of dust. “How’s that for a name?”

“Listen when I’m talking to you—”

“I wonder if you’d pass for a student.”

Charmcaster may have summoned herself a glorified pet rock with eyes, but Gwen now had a demon with a handsome boy’s face, collared by magic for however long the spell would last. Maybe forever, though she wasn’t all that confident in her ability to maintain it.

In any case, introducing Eleven to the graduating class was going to be the highlight of her school year.


End file.
